


take me into your loving arms

by smallblueandloud



Category: X-Men (Original Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, author is very against logan and jean being together but there's no negativity in the work, background scott/jean, liberal timeline edits, the obligatory 'charles is kidnapped and his family joins together to save him' fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 21:52:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14839823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallblueandloud/pseuds/smallblueandloud
Summary: “Someone’s kidnapped the Professor,” says Jean, reading the page straight out of their minds. Scott stops yelling abruptly, and Kitty shakes her head, looking much older than she is. “Not again.”(or, how Logan banded with Charles Xavier's sister, students, and boyfriend to save him from mutant terrorists.)





	take me into your loving arms

**Author's Note:**

> IGNORE ALL OF THE MOVIE TIMELINES. this uses characters/events/etc established in canon, but it's set WAY earlier because i like to think that by the time they're ian mckellen & patrick stewart they've already gotten married. deal? deal. (the reference to chernobyl is supposed to place this in 1986, but honestly it could be in the nineties too.)
> 
> THAT BEING SAID, logan's arrangement with the school is pretty much what it is by X3.

Logan jerks into awareness to the sounds of yelling and the mild smell of panic.

 

It takes him a minute, but he remembers that he’s in Xavier’s mansion pretty quickly. He stumbles out of bed and pushes his door open. Scott’s running past, so he rubs his eyes and barks, “What’s going on?”

 

Scott barely pauses, the asshole, just yells back, “No one can find the Professor!”

 

Logan takes a second to process that and then runs out of the room, falling into step with Scott easily. They jog down corridors, passing Bobby and Rogue, who are searching various empty rooms. Eventually they reach the Professor’s office, where Storm is still giving directions to various students.

 

“Dazzler and Piotr, can you check the back lawns for me? Kitty, you sweep the East Wing,” she’s saying, pointing in various directions as she addresses the kids. She looks up, relieved, as they approach. Logan can smell her - she’s tense, but not very worried.

 

“Good, you’re here. Scott, where’s Jean?” she asks, as the last of the kids in the room file past them.

 

“Searching the grounds telepathically from our room,” says Scott. Logan scratches his upper arm with his left hand, and blinks as he registers the organization evident in the search. “Does this happen very often?” he asks, sitting down.

 

“Usually he’s just out in the grounds, thinking. He tells us, most of the time, but sometimes...” Storm finally meets his eyes as she focuses on him. He doesn’t need his senses to tell him that these moments cause everyone a lot of sadness. “Sometimes the full weight of what he’s lost bears down on him and he doesn’t want us to see him like that.” She offers a weak smile. “He always comes back, though. He still has us, and I think that’s what keeps him going.”

 

Logan’s trying to figure out how to respond to  _ that _ steaming pile of horse shit when he hears footsteps rapidly approaching. Jean bursts into the room, her hair wild and her face worried. “I can’t find him anywhere.”

 

“He could be blocking himself,” Scott says, holding out his hands to her. “Remember the disappearance of ‘89?”

 

“How could we forget?” asks Jean, squeezing them once and looking a little reassured.

 

“There’s nothing we should do but wait, now,” says Storm. 

 

Scott is in the middle of telling Logan a story about when they were all students at the school (Jean’s denying every word) when one of the girls from earlier returns, walking straight through the door. She’s holding a sheet of paper, and Logan can definitely smell fear on this one.

 

“Kitty?” asks Storm, looking up from from the papers on the desk. Kitty hands her the paper, saying, “I found this in one of the East Rooms. The window was- it was smashed open, and there were footprints in the dust!”

 

Scott turns to  _ look _ at her, and she shakes her head frantically. “I didn’t touch anything! I wasn’t corporeal at all!” This seems to be a recurring argument. “Except to pick  _ that _ up,” she amends, gesturing at her find.

 

Storm passes the paper to Logan as the two continue to argue.  _ We have your Professor, _ it reads.  _ Do not attempt to intervene. _

 

“Someone’s kidnapped the Professor,” says Jean, reading the page straight out of their minds. Scott stops yelling abruptly, and Kitty shakes her head, looking much older than she is. “Not again.”

 

“Not  _ again _ ?” repeats Logan. He really shouldn’t be surprised - Xavier is the most powerful mutant he’s ever come across, and it shouldn’t come as a shock that someone wants him. 

 

The school seems totally peaceful, most days, and it’s made him complacent. He shakes himself.  _ Get your head in the game, Wolverine _ .

 

“What would they want with him?”

 

“Depends,” says Storm. “But we should call Dr. McCoy and start trying to figure out who these people are. We need to get him back.”

 

-

 

It’s been eight hours since the Professor disappeared, and Logan is  _ exhausted _ . He can walk for days in the Canadian tundra without shelter or any kind of fire and not feel as tired as he does now, after watching  _ kids _ for a day.

 

After Kitty had brought them the note, Storm, acting as headmistress, had cancelled classes for the day and began working with Jean, Scott, and the blue furry guy (Dr. Hank McCoy, apparently) who showed up during hour four to figure out where the Professor was.

 

She put Logan on kid duty. “If anyone comes for the children, you’ll be able to protect them,” she’d said. He’d heard,  _ You don’t have anything that can help us. _ So he’d nodded and left the room.

 

_ Now I definitely don’t want kids _ , he thinks, walking through the central foyer and trying to ignore his headache.

 

As he’s passing the door, he hears a knock and moves to the side. He almost opens his claws, but thinks better of it, swinging open the door, to find-

 

A blonde woman, who looks incredibly determined.

 

He’s not sure if she’s a parent or a former student, so he lets her push him aside and walk into the foyer. But that doesn’t mean he’s letting her get any further.

 

“Who the hell are you?” he growls. She turns around and stares back at him, unimpressed. “I’m here to see Storm,” she says, looking him up and down exactly once.

 

He watches her in silence. She rolls her eyes and starts for the stairs, but he steps in front of her, effectively barring her path. 

 

“Let her go,” says Jean, emerging from the corridor with Storm and McCoy behind her. “I’m not stopping her from leaving,” he says. “She’s fine, Logan,” says Storm. “Let her pass.”

 

“Who is this lady?” he asks, stepping to the side. The woman looks up at him angrily. “My name is Raven. This is my house.”

 

“Like hell it is,” says Logan. He feels his hackles raise. Privileged people always get on his nerves, have for as long as he can remember. “This is a school.”

 

“Why don’t we all calm down,” says Storm, eying Logan’s hands, as if she expects him to start stabbing people. He straightens out of his fighting stance, and she notices, nodding at him before abruptly turning and hugging the other woman. “Nice to see you, Raven,” she says.

 

“You too, Ororo,” replies the stranger, her voice warm. Then she pulls away and turns to McCoy. “Hank,” she says, her voice carefully flat. He nods, just barely. “Raven.”

 

They stare at each other for a few minutes before Storm herds them upstairs to Xavier’s office. When they’re all gathered, Raven reaches into her handbag and pulls out a sheet of paper, tossing it on the table.

 

“We have Xavier. Do not attempt to take him back. We know your numbers are few. Contact us at- whatever phone number- for orders,” reads Storm. Scott looks at Raven from where he’s leaning against Jean’s chair. “Do you have any more information?”

 

“No. They took care to make sure we couldn’t find him, although  _ he’s _ still looking into it.”

 

“ _ He _ doesn’t have our contacts,” he says, and leaves the room. McCoy examines the paper. “Moira still has some friends in the CIA,” he muses. “That might- yes. I’ll look into that,” he says, hurrying out.

 

Storm moves to follow them, but turns at the last minute. “Jean?” she asks, expectantly.

 

“I’ll keep looking,” promises Jean, and settles down in her armchair. She closes her eyes, putting her fingers on her temples, and Logan only thinks to protest being left alone with Raven  _ after _ her consciousness leaves her body. Instead, he turns back to the blonde.

 

“Why are you giving us information? What do you care about the Professor?” he asks. She sits down on the desk and sighs. “He’s my brother,” she says, after a brief hesitation. “We may have disagreed about- a  _ lot _ of things,” she elaborates, smiling a little, before sobering. “but he’s still my brother.”

 

“Oh,” says Logan, feeling surprised and angry at his surprise. “What do these people want with us?”

 

“They don’t want anything with the school,” she says, picking up one of the Professor’s photos and examining it, smiling sadly. “No one in the mutant community wants to hurt it. This school holds our future.”

 

“Then?” prompts Logan.

 

“Charles is important, and not just to this school. We’ve-  _ I’ve _ made plenty of enemies, and they all know that if they have him, we’ll cooperate.”

 

Logan doesn’t miss her use of “we,” but he doesn’t comment on it, either. “Then why aren’t you cooperating?”

 

She glances up at him, with a sly look on her face. “Because they won’t have him for long.”

 

They sit in silence for another minute. Logan glances at Jean. Her brow is furrowed and he doesn’t think she’s coming back anytime soon. He considers leaving to do something,  _ anything _ to help, but he still doesn’t want to leave Raven alone in here, and he doesn’t have the contacts to help with trying to find who took the Professor. Raven seems to have given up all of her relevant information, too. 

 

All they can really do is wait.

 

“Are you a mutant, like Xavier?” he asks eventually, just to stave off boredom. Raven glances up at him, surprised.

 

“Yes,” she says, slowly. For a moment, she seems to consider something, before she locks eyes with him.

 

There’s some sort of fluttering, and then he’s staring  _ himself _ in the eyes.

 

_ Mystique _ , he realizes, lunging at her. She grabs his arm, but he manages to push it down far enough to trap her on the desk.

 

Distantly, he hears shouting, but all he can focus on is the movement of her skin as it turns blue and she becomes the terrorist that he fought on Liberty Island. She grins at him, and he grunts and opens his claws

 

_ Stop, _ he hears, and then watches as his arm moves away from her, without any input from his brain.

 

“Jean!” he yells. “Jean, she’s-”

 

“Mystique,” finishes Jean. Her hand is extended, but she drops it and he regains control of his body suddenly. “We know,” she says, and then drops back into her chair.

 

Storm bursts in, and surveys the room. Logan is expecting her to attack Mystique, or at least yell at her, but she just sighs.

 

“You didn’t tell him?” asks Mystique, dusting herself off and still watching him warily. “I thought you told all your students.”

 

“He’s not a student,” says Storm. She turns to Logan. “Please don’t attack our allies.”

 

“She’s not our ally!” Logan yells. “She’s- she almost killed one of the students!”

 

“Yes,” says Raven patiently, “and I already apologized for that.”

 

“She did,” confirms Storm. “Rogue forgave her, more or less.”

 

“What the  _ fuck _ ?” says Logan. “I don’t understand any of this, except that she -” he points to the blue woman “- tried to kill us.”

 

“I didn’t try to kill any of you, actually,” says Raven. “That was all Toad and Sabretooth, who were both  _ incredibly _ incompetent and didn’t understand the nature of our... agreement.” She eyes Logan’s claws, which are still extended. “Are you going to try to kill me if I move?”

 

“Yes,” he grumbles, but he dutifully pulls them back in. “So- what? Your... group isn’t supposed to try to hurt us, and we aren’t supposed to try to hurt you?”

 

“Basically,” says Raven. He glances at Storm, who shrugs. Jean has already retreated back into her telepathic search.

 

“Why? What’s the use of flying out to stop them, then?”

 

“Not wanting to hurt them doesn’t mean we can’t try to stop them. Destroying their equipment, causing temporary injury, that sort of thing,” says Storm. Raven nods.

 

“And as to why-” she says. She sighs. “Charles and I didn’t have the- best relationship, before I left. He wanted me to suppress my nature, and eventually I realized that wasn’t possible.” She spreads her hands. “I am who I am, and that can’t just be hidden.” She stands in silence for a minute, contemplating something.

 

“But-” prompts Storm, and Raven grins at her before picking the story up again. “ _ But _ he did have my best interests at heart. He knew that if I revealed who I was, there was no way I could live a normal life. He wasn’t telling me to hide out of hatred. He was trying to protect me, I guess,” she explains. She looks away, briefly. “I forgave him. I told him what was wrong. And he got better.”

 

She turns back to Logan, and there’s fire in her eyes. “We might have different ideas of how it needs to happen, but we both have the same goal.” She looks at Storm. “All of us do. And we don’t need to isolate ourselves just because we disagree. We can still care about each other.” Storm nods, grimly.

 

Logan’s aware enough to recognize well-rehearsed lines. “You argue about this with someone a lot, don’t you?”

 

Raven shakes her head. “You’re too perceptive for your own good,” she sighs, glancing at the frame that she’d dropped, face down, as Logan attacked her. “Yes, I do. The damned man is a masochist.”

 

He almost asks who, except he  _ knows _ who. When Raven and her boss had escaped capture on Liberty Island, Xavier had refused to help the government find them. It had baffled him at the time, but now-

 

“Magneto?” he guesses. Raven shakes her head. “It’s not really my business to be talking about,” she says, just as Scott opens the door, looking wildly hopeful. “We have a location,” he says, as he makes a beeline to Jean to gently shake her out of her trance. He helps her up and turns to the rest of them. “Beast’s getting the quinjet ready. Wheels up in five.”

 

“I need to make a call,” Raven says, all business and almost to herself, as Storm follows Scott and Jean out. “Azazel will come, and I’m hoping I can get- you don’t have to wait for me,” she says, interrupting herself when she notices Logan’s not moving.

 

Logan stares at her for a minute, and then smells the air. He doesn’t know if she’s aware that he can tell what she’s feeling, but he decides not to mention it anyway.

 

“I’ll see you on the plane,” he says, and leaves her alone in the room.

 

_ Trust is imperative _ , a voice in his head says, and if it sounds too much like the Professor, Logan ignores that.

 

-

 

It doesn’t take them long to find Xavier once they’re in the base. Jean finds a telepathic dead space when she scans the area. They have at least two geniuses on their team, but it doesn’t take one to figure out what that means.

 

Logan and Raven fight their way there. Storm and the others focus on disrupting operations as much as possible while trying to find evidence enough to convict this particular group of mutants for terrorism and kidnapping of multiple members of their own kind.

 

Before they landed, Raven was ready to go off on her own to find her brother. Logan pointed out that he was probably the best one to carry the Professor out once they got to him.

 

“They probably won’t provide us with a chair to wheel him out in,” he’d said, and she’d frowned. “You’ll need me to watch your back, though.”

 

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Logan had said, and that had been that.

 

Now, Logan is thankful for her help, because with the hostiles and the worry about Xavier, he’s not paying attention to their environment the way that he usually does. Raven is a godsend, taking out the men who try to attack him while he’s already dealing with five at once. And when they get to the cell, Raven is the one who fakes a fingerprint to open the door. 

 

Sure enough, the Professor is slumped in a chair that’s been nailed to the floor. Even when Logan breaks his restraints and picks him up, more cautious than usual, he doesn’t react at all. Logan exchanges worried glances with Raven and then decides that they can panic about his condition once they’re back at the school, taking the corridors at a run, Raven at his heels.

 

As they rush past the bodies of guards foolish enough to try and stop their team, Xavier stirs. Logan slows to a stop immediately and tries to get a sense of how he’s doing, but Xavier’s eyes are unfocused and he’s obviously not hearing any of what they’re saying.

 

“What’s he doing?” Logan asks, turning to Raven. She looks at his face, and then points at his mouth, which is mouthing words.

 

“Talking with someone, probably,” she says. “Jean, maybe?”

 

“Don’t get yourself hurt... on my account...  _ Erik _ ...” Xavier mumbles, barely loud enough to hear.

 

“Well, I’ll be fucked,” Raven says, jerking away, surprised.

 

Logan agrees, especially when scraps of sheet metal from nearby float over and fashion themselves into a rudimentary stretcher, hovering about three feet off the ground. If Logan had any doubt who  _ Erik  _ was, they’ve been dispelled.

 

“You don’t have to run,” Xavier says, louder this time, as he extends an arm to reach for an invisible hand. The metal nudges Logan in the waist, and he takes the hint, carefully depositing the Professor’s limp body onto it.

 

He takes it as a good sign that the stretcher doesn’t zoom off immediately. He can tell from the relief radiating off Raven in waves that she feels the same way.

 

After a few more minutes of standing and staring at the half-conscious Professor, Logan decides to take initiative. “We don’t have time to be standing around,” he says, and starts jogging forward, trusting that Raven will make sure her brother follows. Sure enough, the stretcher follows him, keeping an even pace and not jostling Xavier in the slightest.

 

Logan’s instincts prove to be right. As they rush through corridors, joined at odd intervals by various allies from both teams, the base starts to collapse around them. He doesn’t try to dodge many of the chunks of concrete - he can take a few concussions, but Xavier can’t and he needs to make sure that nothing hits the prone body on the sheet of metal floating next to him.

 

Raven is busy dodging, though, which means that when a particular passageway  _ really _ starts to fall apart over them, Logan can’t look to her for help in defending the Professor.  _ You’re on your own, bub, _ he thinks to himself, and gets ready for a  _ lot _ of pain in his near future as he prepares to shield Xavier’s body with his own.

 

But when a huge chunk tears itself off and begins to fall right in front of them, it doesn’t get very far. In fact, it  _ floats _ , halfway down the corridor, and Logan is aware enough to smell the metal-infused scent of a certain terrorist nearby and figure out what’s just happened.

 

He doesn’t stick around to find Magneto, though, just tucks his head in and focuses on running faster.

 

-

 

Charles wakes up to the welcome sight of his sister’s (true) face. She’s sitting by his bedside next to one of his spare wheelchairs, reading  _ A Wrinkle in Time _ and frowning.

 

_ Raven? _ , he projects, and she looks up, surprised. “You’re awake!” she says, a smile blooming on her face, and she puts the book down. “How are you feeling?”

 

“Like I’ve been injected with far too many drugs,” he says, and she nods, unsurprised. “That’s about what happened. They were trying to supress your telepathy.”

 

_ Which obviously didn’t work, _ she projects, trusting him to hear her words without prying in the way she didn’t when they were young. The change makes him smile, because while he may have messed up their relationship when he was fresh and naive, he didn’t break it past fixing.

 

“So I was kidnapped?” he asks, since his memories of the past few days are hazy. “How long has it been?” He’d be clamoring to get back to work, except that Raven is  _ here _ and that’s still rare enough that he wants to savor it.  _ I’ve earned this much, _ he thinks, and then focuses back on his only sister.

 

“About three days,” she says, leaning back and resting her feet on the bed next to him. “You were taken, but these were amateurs. They didn’t know enough to leave you alone - just wanted some leverage over us, I think.” She pauses. “We’ll get their methods out of them eventually and give you the details. You know, you should really fix your security.”

 

“Raven, I am perfectly safe here,” he starts, but she interrupts him. “These idiots tried-  _ succeeded _ in taking you from your home, against your will, and kept you for days, high out of your  _ mind _ . If  _ they _ could do it-”

 

“I know, dear,” he says tiredly, noticing the tears in her eyes and the way that her fists are shaking. “If you could calm down - your anger is leaking, and I already have a headache.”

 

The angry, protective Mystique vanishes in favor of a fussy Raven immediately. “You should get some more rest,” she says, standing and fixing his blankets. She finishes before he can protest and steps back. “I know, I know, you’re not helpless. But let me worry?” she asks, and he knows she isn’t just talking about the blankets. 

 

“Of course, dear sister,” he says, grateful as always that she still cares about him.

 

She smiles down at him, fond as ever, and then leaves. Charles is left alone. 

 

He tries to sleep, he really does, but there’s some detail about his rescue that he can’t remember. He’s trying to ignore it and just rest, but then there’s something-

 

_ She’s right, you know _ .

 

Ah. That detail.

 

_ They simply got lucky, _ he sends back, along with the mental impression of a sigh. Erik isn’t fooled, however, just continuing to project with the determination that’s gotten him this far in a hard, hard life.

 

_ Don’t try to fool me with that  _ I’m so tired _ act of yours,  _ he scolds.  _ You can’t trick me for a minute. And if these men got lucky, who knows who else can? _

 

_ I had been trying to find you with Cerebro for hours when they took me _ , Charles sends back, his tone frosty even in his mind.  _ Finding an empty space where your mind was supposed to be made me vulnerable, so to say _ .

 

There’s no reply on the other end. Charles isn’t above trying to guilt Erik into leaving the helmet behind; they both know how much he hates it. Erik still refuses to dump it, though he does feel guilty about not doing so. Charles, in turn, tries not to hope too much that he’ll ever get rid of the thing, although he never really succeeds. He considers what it would be like, if Erik agreed to get rid of it today.

 

_ I’m sorry _ , is what Charles receives instead. He lets himself feel the disappointment, as he always does, and then tunes it out.

 

_ I was simply worried, _ he replies, apologetically.  _ You hadn’t said anything to us, to  _ me _ , for months. And after that disaster in Chernobyl... _

 

_ I’m fine _ , Erik says, effectively stopping the conversation. There’s silence for a few minutes, until Charles feels brave enough to ask his question.

 

_ You were there, weren’t you? _

 

Charles gets the impression of an eye roll.  _ Of course I was there. You let yourself get kidnapped. What was I supposed to do, let you get hurt? _

 

_ It was  _ dangerous _ , Erik! _

 

_ Why do you suppose I was there? _

 

_ You can’t just- _

 

_ What? Care for you? Charles, we may have had our differences, but there is no way I am going to let you be hurt _ .  _ Never again. _

 

Charles feels rather than hears the regret that comes with his current physical condition. It’s powerful, and all-encompassing, and he knows this is what Erik feels whenever they speak.

 

_ It was a mistake, Erik. I’m far past blaming you for it _ , he sends, overwhelmed as he always is at the depth of emotion this man feels for him.

 

_ I’m not _ .

 

They sit in silence for a few minutes more, which feels a little odd, considering Charles hasn’t actually located Erik yet. He’s trying to give the man space - Erik thinks he isn’t welcome here, and despite how much he regrets it, Charles thinks he’s probably right.

 

_ You should stay for a few days _ , says Charles, trying valiantly to ward off sleep. Erik sends a refusal infused with regret, and says,  _ You should sleep, Schatz. _

 

Charles ignores the little pang that the endearment causes, and settles back.  _ I wish things were different, _ he sends. Out loud, he is the headmaster, Professor X, the leader who is calm and comforts everybody. In his head, here with Erik, he lets himself ask for comfort and gives it in return.

 

_ So do I, _ says Erik.  _ Get some sleep _ . He couples this with the feeling of hands on his shoulders, and Charles relaxes even more.

 

Just as he’s fading into sleep, he sends a  _ Thank you _ . He’s not sure for what - probably everything, if he really thinks about it - but Erik seems to get the message all the same.

 

_ Sleep well _ , he receives, and then Charles falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> oh, and also? logan is in no way interested in jean in this fic. just letting you know.


End file.
